ARTISTS TALKING

# 15 [23 November 2011]

we did the art trail.  legacy here:

http://belperarttrail2011.blogspot.com/

and we enjoyed it, and we said we'd have another go in 2012.  we keep a blog of what we're doing:

http://belperarttrail2012.blogspot.com/

and we're running a fun participatory activity we call the murmation project as a promotinal tool for the art trail and we're upfront about that.

details of the project and how to participate can be found here:

http://www.corridor-arts.org.uk/abcd/belperarttrai...

there's a link at the bottom of the page to the mailout.co blog antry about the project.

# 14 [21 April 2011]

we’re being vey brave right now.  we’re working with belper town council to mount an art trail pivoted upon the belper food festival.  we’re doing it funded by drive, determination and a collaborative spirit.  our aim is to have 10 shops with 10 artists.  my evolved thinking places me at a point where the trail will happen, and i know how to achieve it.

it’s a pilot scheme, so we’re not attempting to solve all of the social and economic problems of the western world, just simply to mount a two week exhibition of works made by members of the artistic community of in and around belper.

i’m looking after the webpage page and the legacy site for the project and utilising networks to publicise and promote the endeavour.

# 13 [12 January 2011]

what place for competitiveness?

this could have been my blog entry subject as i’ve enjoyed reading rob’s entry with the cycling video attached and it has resonated with my own recent realisation of ‘the sports context’ within what i do.

however this is going to be about another phase of development of the website and associated thinking about corridor arts dot org dot uk.  there is a project on the distant horizon i have been giving how to present the project online.  research within my own practice has drawn me to some new possibilities.

today i have been able to introduce a visual theme that supports touch-based mobile webkit devices.  this means the nokia n8 still displays it in the standard theme.  while i was at that i’ve added a more efficient method of displaying event information and as a consequence works within the mobile theme too.  i have some other development things to investigate too.

corridor for me is a fun interesting creative project.  as i wait for the result of my grants for the arts application, i reflect that as the corridor project is essentially about collaboration, all those fun creative things i currently do collaboratively have a place within the corridor website.  oh and something else i will be adding soon, seo of images.

corridor is my fun evening and weekend project.  i know that when i’m having fun that i produce fun things.  when we began the corridor project there was a seriousness about what we were doing, which was good, however we were not able to set a ceiling on that seriousness.  at times it got slightly out of hand.  it got slightly in the way of just going out and making interventions in the woods, taking photographs of trees on walks and playing with paint and drawing.

i now have a handlable seriousness within my personal practice, leaving me to have fun with my creativity and those others around me.

the feelings are good.

the optimism is rising.

# 12 [18 November 2010]

it gives me pleasure to add another post here.  since august the group has been constituted, opened a bank account and is in talks with a local council about staging an event next year.

today we’ve met to discuss our project plans and evolve a project timeline while exploring the curatorial possibilities.  i personally believe that if there is a will there is a way.

i like how this project is happening in real time and is evolving out of a want to do and a want to do that is enjoyable, rewarding and fun.

we’re developing our own strategies, aims and experimental opportunities with the project, all with the broader greater good in mind.

the tortoise is back in fashion !

# 11 [18 October 2010]

i'm so pleased when i get one of those moments in which i ask a question and the questionee has had exactly the same question in mind.

our common thought has been about our bank account.

one quick phone call and i've had it confirmed that the account is open.

one small step and all that !

# 10 [13 August 2010]

good work today.

can't talk right now, curry and beer.

more soon.xxxx

# 9 [14 July 2010]

hi richard, i'm delighted to read that you've put an image of mine on the a-n- students homepage.  i read the comment on this blog at a point when a piece of good news/recognition for effort was really needed.  you mentioned something about commenting on graduating from degrees uneditted to artists talking.

it was actually quite easy, i just started a blog on artists talking, just after graduating from university.  leaving university came at a bad time for me.  i'd just finished a piece of work and i was faced with the upheavel of not having any regular funding and structure that went with that.  apparently i was a night mare to be around for several months.  i wasn't actually told this until recently, and frankly i was glad to hear it now as at least it means i'm not quite so much of a pain to be around.  i do remember describing the end of the degree as very cliff like, and i don't mean mitchelmore.

the big difference for me in starting an artists talking blog was the lack of common interest.  on degrees uneditted, the common interest was the student experience.  to some extext that was bigger and more imporant than the work being made.  without 'student'  being a describing word in my life, it was at first difficult to find a describing word, as describing words appear to be really important to those people outside of where students work.

i had some success as a result of my degree peice and from countless rejections i am aware of not being succesful.

space is a vital comodity. 

i write that and then struggle to follow it up.  i'm thinking that i have spent hours in discussions with people about putting things on, in spaces, as we know lots of people who make and we make oursleves.

and there lies the rub.  to get premium space to present anything made, countless words are first required.  very few people seem to take me seriously when i point out that for a sphere of people creating things to be looked at, there aren't half loads of words involved. 

blogging has been problematic for me.  the wonderful thing about a-n- is i've been able to use the blogging department for research into a line of investigation, my without intention blog has been a joy to me to see how it develops, and in the public domain.  why do i then think of the wizard from the wizard of oz?  oh because he's a little man behind a curtain and it's difficult to see what he's doing.

"graduating to Artists talking from Degrees unedited" it wasn't so much graduation as directly. this space is mine to do with it as i want to. this blog is an record of an investigation in real time, with no deadline and no group crits. this space is way bigger than 'degrees' so much so that it needs to be played with, to learn about, to annoy all the old farts, not that there are any here.

today i'm feeling pleased with myself as i have had a very good meeting this morning and this afternoon got the corridor hyphen arts dot org dot uk site to a point of development that i can see how far i've come with it.  i see artists talking as a legacy device. 

at the beginning of a practice session, no one really takes much attention to what's happening.  there's settings to get right, course familarisation and last year's data to consider. the early pracice sessions are free. the can be fun, tryng out things because you want to. a fan of motogp will get that.

at the beginning of practice of using artists talking, i would draw on the language of motogp, get out there, try stuff with no fear of falling or not getting to the end of the lap. if you want make something you will do.  artists talking is a space to create in.  find a set up that works and give it a few laps to see how well it works.

# 8 [13 July 2010]

i read somewhere that green is an agressive colour.  i like it.  i like it because i have been exposed to way to much blue.  way too much blue in my past work.  blue was the colour that always got used to light events where groups of people were gathered together to be communicated too.  the design aspect of lighting became almost redundant as there was a formula that was stuck to.  i never really understood why.  i always longed to see other colours.  the only time i did get excited about blue was when i lit an event for a refrigerator manufacturer.  every single fixture in the room had a piece of blue gel in it.  it's amazing how many shades of blue there are when you really need to find them.  my favourite blue was rosco 661.  it had a presence that no other blue had.

so when i came to redesign the colour for the corridor site, i wanted to use green, lots of green. i did use it. and to begin with i was happy with it.  there was something that i felt uneasy about, didn't know what it was.  i started a blogger blog for corridor.  i picked a theme for it.  over the weekend i looked at that theme again.  it had an open feeling.  i looked at what i'd done for the main corridor site.  it felt closed in, not good really.

as chris and i negotiate what corridor arts is, the website has become an opportunity to work out a concept, a visual concept.  it's become for me a space in which i can express something visually as well as the expected words and pictures.  my thinking is shifting.  the foundations of the thinking is progressing. 

the website has a 2d quality about it.  a 3d quality about it as i think of it as a space and there's also a 4d quality to it as what it is is viewable in real time and is being developed in real time.  there is intention that is it self being intentionally considered.

corridor arts gives me the space to explore for myself in my own time.  i'm sure i've said that before.

so today i've been working on a new visual theme for the corridor site.  conceptually it has more space to roam, to explore, away from languages that i'm continually translating, much more fundamental.  conceptually it's leading somewhere that is intended to be sustainable, yet at the moment we've steered away from setting what that is.

i'm excited about finnishing it and making it live.

# 7 [9 July 2010]

the website has had a redesign.  it's larey and individual and some say has an attitutude of it's own.

on the doing front, we continue to explore and develop chris' abandoned projects ideal.  the ideal being the project forms a time and space to pick up projects that have been started and left for whatever reason.  mailout magazine have shown interest in chris publishing an article about the project.  we're starting to plan a summer camp.  at this stage it's small and experimental while we consider what it can be.

this project is something we're driving ourselves and starting to extend our thinking to possible funding streams.

there is of course a stream near to where the summer camp will take place.  any comments, suggestions & please please tell me when it is please type questions can be sent to us via our facebook page or the website contact page.

# 6 [15 June 2010]

at 14:44 on the fifteenth of june i sat down to write something.  as i began to compose what i wrote, i realised i'd not composed what i was going to write, other than to know that i wanted to communicate something about the on going work with corridor hyphen arts dot org dot uk.

it was in my intention to write something purtaining to the imminent development of the work that was so far corridor hyphen arts dot org dot uk.

as my lap became warm, while i thought about what i intended to write, into my consciuos mind came the notion that i needed to do more work on the idea that was to develop corridor hyphen arts dot org dot uk.

at 14:49 an ill feeling of ill prepared ness ness came to me.  go! think! what is it that you will do with corridor hyphen arts dot org dot uk ?